AUSTIN - Texas Supreme Court justices raised pointed questions Tuesday over what happens if they allow gay couples who were married elsewhere to divorce here or whether they should close the door on the idea because of the state ban on same-sex marriage.

Justice Don Willett highlighted the oddity of the court being asked to preserve Texas' gay-marriage ban by preventing gay divorce.

"Texas law does declare same-sex marriage contrary to Texas public policy, and it would strike some people as odd that the state is advocating a view that would keep same-sex couples wedlocked instead of letting them split," Willett said. "It would seem to many that divorce would further the state's public policy and not undermine the state's public policy."

The court could take months before ruling in the consolidated cases, which involve two gay couples who were married in Massachusetts and sought divorces after moving to Texas, one in Austin and one in Dallas.

Attorney General Greg Abbott, now running for governor, opposes allowing Texas divorces in same-sex marriages. He said in court documents that Texas' recognition of marriage as only being between a man and a woman prevents gay couples from divorcing in the Lone Star State.

"There is no way to grant a divorce without recognizing a marriage," Deputy Attorney General James Blacklock argued before the court Tuesday. "Divorce unquestionably recognizes and gives effect to the marriage in violation of Texas policy."

The lawyer for the couples, James Scheske, of Austin, said his clients were legally married elsewhere and have a right to divorce in the state where they live.

"These cases are about divorce and equality," he said.

Scheske said a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act "is the game-changer here."

He said that when laws "target gays and lesbians for second-class status, those laws do not survive constitutional scrutiny."

Abbott said in court documents that the federal case still affirms states' right to define marriage.

Scheske argued that it is not necessary for Texas to recognize gay marriage to allow gay couples to divorce. "Marriage and divorce are opposites of each other," he said.

The cases come to the state's highest civil court after different rulings in lower appellate courts.

In the Austin case, a lesbian couple was granted a divorce in state district court, and the 3rd Court of Appeals said the attorney general intervened too late.

In the Dallas case, the 5th Court of Appeals said the state's ban on recognition of same-sex marriage prevented the trial court from having jurisdiction to hear the divorce petition of two gay men.

Scheske said the Dallas couple remains married, even though they split up in 2008, due to the ruling.

If the Supreme Court rules against gay divorce, he said, it effectively would remarry the Austin couple. He said their divorce agreements, including those regarding their child, would be undone.

Blacklock said gay couples have the alternative of voiding their marriages in Texas, an option raised and then dropped by one party in the Austin case.

Justices, however, raised questions about the confusion that could cause since it is a different legal standard from divorce. A marriage that is void is seen as invalid from its start, and justices wondered how that could affect obligations couples take on with marriage.

Scheske said it would be untrue to declare his clients' marriages void, since they were valid regardless of how Texas treats the unions.

Scheske also said the state generally does not have the authority to intervene in private divorce proceedings unless one of the parties challenges the constitutionality of the Texas law. He said the attorney general is asking for a carve-out to disrupt same-sex divorce cases.

Blacklock said the cases constitute an attack on the constitutionality of the state's ban on recognizing gay marriage, and the state has a right to intervene.